


Man of Constant Sorrow

by Anonymous



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bartender Louis, Drunk Harry, Hurt and comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 06:21:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5486816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Therapists give advice; you don’t have to do that. Just listen."</p>
<p>“I was listening. Then you insulted my profession and I defended myself.”</p>
<p>“So shut up and listen,” Greasy says, nudging his empty glass forward. “And give me another hit while you’re at it.”</p>
<p>or the one where Louis is a bartender who listens and Harry is the drunk who speaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man of Constant Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmaazhou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaazhou/gifts).



> massive thank you to the people who edited this and helped me out. i thought this prompt was very interesting and i wanted to see what i could do with harry/louis in a bar setting, and just in a bar setting. hope you enjoy your gift, and merry christmas if you celebrate!
> 
> title from: i am a man of constant sorrow, which is also the song harry sings throughout the fic

There is a boy with too-long, greasy looking hair standing at Louis’ bar. He’s got bags under his eyes and the kind of smirk on his lips like he’s looking for danger. Louis dislikes him immediately.

“Something strong, please,” Greasy Boy rasps. He’s leaning against the counter, palms spread out across the wood. He’s leaning in so close that Louis can smell his already booze-ridden breath.

“Y’alright, mate?” Louis asks with a raised eyebrow. He turns around to get him a whiskey, though, because as much as he’d like to tell him to kindly fuck off, it’s sort of in his job description to get him a drink.

Greasy Boy watches him with furrowed eyebrows, smirk still on his lips. It’s relatively quiet tonight and Louis has missed the energy of the bar. It seems Greasy has, too, because he starts to sing lowly under his breath.

_I'm a man of constant sorrow_

_I've seen trouble all my days._

Louis glares at him when he slides the glass towards him. He doesn’t mean too, but it just sort of comes out. It’s Sunday. He has better things to do than to play with greasy alcoholics.

“Thanks,” Greasy says easily, straightening up. He towers over Louis at this height, and unlike before with his shoulders all slouched, he looks like a man here, all big and proud. Greasy Man, then. He can work with that. He starts to down the drink like a child would chocolate milk. It dribbles down his chin. Louis pulls a face.

“I once dated a bartender,” Greasy says once he sets the empty glass on the counter. Louis blinks at him, unimpressed.

“If that’s a line you’re gonna have to work a little harder than that, mate.”

Greasy barks out a laugh before leaning up against the counter with a wink. Louis fights the urge to roll his eyes. “If I was flirting with you, you’d know. Anyways. I dated this bartender. Total stick in the mud. Horribly pretty, but boring as fuck. He had a lot of weed, though, for some reason. I think he did it for some sort of excitement in his life.”

“We see a lot of excitement. You seem like an unreliable narrator.”

“Maybe you’re an unthoughtful listener,” Greasy shoots back. “Aren’t bartenders supposed to, like, listen? Supply booze and listen.”

“I’m here to give you alcohol and kick you to the bouncer if you have a bit too much to drink, mate. I’m not your therapist.” Louis scoffs, already trying to make eye contact with Liam to get this guy out of here. He’s so over this conversation.

“Therapists give advice; you don’t have to do that. Just listen.”

_For fuck’s sake, does he not have any friends?_

“I _was_ listening. Then you insulted my profession and I defended myself.”

“So shut up and listen,” Greasy says, nudging his empty glass forward. “And give me another hit while you’re at it.”

Louis is better than this. He may work in a bar, but he’s better than this. Despite this, he turns around, fills the glass with apple cider, and slides it back. Greasy reaches for it and is already sipping on it in seconds. He doesn’t seem to notice that there’s no booze in his glass. Or maybe he does and just doesn’t say anything about it. He can’t, really, when he’s too busy talking about the bartender again.

Louis listens.

~

Greasy is there at the beginning of Louis’ shift the next night, in the same clothes. This time, his hair is pulled into a tight bun, maybe to hide the grease. Perhaps he looked in a mirror and realized he looked like some crazy, homeless person.

“I’m Harry,” Greasy says when Louis turns around to face him. “And once, I went on a road trip in America. I fell in love and have been fucked up since.”

“Love tends to do that,” Louis says carefully as he tends to other randoms, sad men whose marriages must be falling apart if they’re at a bar on a Monday night, looking barely legal girls up and down.

“Life tends to do that. Fucks you up, that is. Name one thing that can’t fuck you up.”

Louis can’t.

“Your family fucks you up. School fucks you up. Sex fucks you up. Friends fuck you up. Everyone fucks you the fuck up,” Harry continues, eyebrows furrowed together.

Louis hates to admit it, but he looks good like this. Not as greasy, that is. With his hair out of his eyes, Louis can see everything, and is suddenly hyper aware of every detail of his face. Green eyes, plump lips, bits of stubble across his jaw, pale in the sort of way that isn’t totally disgusting. He’d be more fit if he cut his hair or showered, though.

“Maybe that’s what the meaning of life is. Finding the person who doesn’t fuck you up,” Louis says with a shrug, eyeing Harry’s third drink of the night. He’ll change it over to the cider again soon, when Harry’s drunk enough that he won’t notice the switch.

“That’s too deep for me, man. You’re going therapist on me. I fucked my shrink once; it was awesome,” Harry says longingly, looking off into the distance. He looks far away despite the fact he’s all pressed into the counter again, too close for it to be considered normal.

“Tell me more about that,” Louis says in his best fake-therapist voice. Harry’s eyes flash back to him and his lips quirk up until there’s an amused smile on his face, the first time he’s showed emotion besides a scowl or smirk. It’s a good look for him.

Louis listens to him talk about his shrink the rest of the night.

~

Harry coming to the bar becomes a regular thing. Louis has a night class on Thursday, the one day he doesn’t work. When he returns on Friday, Harry is there waiting for him like a dog that’s been left out in the cold.

“You weren’t here yesterday,” Harry says accusingly, and Louis holds his hands up in defense.

“Thursdays are my night classes. I’m sure Zayn was happy to listen to your problems.”

That most likely isn’t true. Zayn is quiet and probably one of the nicest guys he knows apart from Liam, but he’s not exactly patient with the drunks. He’s a truly awful bartender in the grand scheme of things, which is the reason why he only does it one night a week, choosing to focus on his art the other nights.

“I didn’t tell him my problems,” Harry insists stubbornly, nudging his arm. “Whiskey, please, yeah?”

Louis fills up his glass without complaint.

“I lost my virginity when I was sixteen to a girl who was already in uni,” Harry says, starting his story for the evening. “I was really confused and she looked really bored and it didn’t feel, like, right, you know? Her tits were all up in my face and I was able to get it up but it just felt weird. Off, y’know? I didn’t have some sort of realization I was gay. It didn’t come to me all of a sudden. I just kept fucking girls until I wasn’t anymore and then I was fucking guys. And now I’m still fucking guys. They’re just so much nicer, y’know? There’s no tits in your face. They’re never on their period. It’s basically just pure fucking bliss. Y’know?”

Louis knows. He fills Harry’s drink up again, and together, they raise their glasses to boys.

_For in this world I'm bound to ramble_

Harry sings when Louis starts to tie off his apron that night and it’s time for him to head home.

_I have no friends to help me now._

~

Harry lives for excitement. He lives for the rush. He’s gone skydiving eight times, or so he tells Louis. He’s fallen in love at the drop of a hat more times than he can count. He falls in love with strangers and his enemies. He falls in love with cities and drinks, and women, despite not liking to fuck them. He gets high when he can but prefers the rush of booze to the rush of drugs.

One day, Louis will kiss him to shut him up. One day, Louis will stop refilling the fifth drink with cider and fill the fourth drink with it instead. Then the third, and eventually, maybe even the first. One day, Louis will tell Harry that real love is knowing about someone’s quirks, that it’s impossible to fall in love with strangers or alcoholic beverages that look pretty before you chug them down. None of these days are those days.

Speaking of days, each one has a specific topic to abide by.

On Mondays, Harry tells of one night stands. Wild boys who leave through the window and steal money from his wallet. Boys with sex-crazed eyes and smirks on their pretty lips. Louis tries not to feel too jealous when Harry talks about them like they’re still a part of his life, like he’s still coming home to them each night even though Louis knows he’s not.

Tuesdays are for ex-boyfriends. These are the ones that have fucked with Harry’s head too much, that left him emotionally scarred and bruised. Harry’s most open on Tuesdays - vulnerable in a way he usually isn’t, sad and soft and quiet. Louis wants to stroke his face and whisper that he’d never hurt him like that, but he manages to keep himself grounded.

Wednesdays are about drugs. Booze and drugs and how he’s not addicted but craves the rush.

On Thursdays, Louis just misses him. It’s as simple as that.

Fridays are good. It’s busiest, then, so they don’t spend all night talking, but Louis is busy and distracted and he feels Harry’s eyes on him the entire time, not moving from his position against the bar, even when boys try to flirt or girls press their tits against his arm. It’s flattering, to say the least.

On Saturdays, Harry’s too drunk from Friday to do much talking, so he pretends to sleep with his body slouched against the counter until Louis finally lets him pass out in the break room on the couch, a blanket thrown across his lanky body. He’s always gone by the time Louis’ shift ends.

Sundays are relatively the same as weekdays, with random stories about running from the police and facing death in the eyes a few times. Sometimes he talks about his mother, a humble woman who was deeply disappointed in him, or his sister who always had a future when he did not.

Louis, however, does not go into nearly as much detail of his life. He makes comments here and there, relates to the stories he can, admits that his dad left him, too. But besides that, Harry does the talking. And Louis listens, because he likes to hear the sound of his voice echo through the bar, likes counting the speckles in his eyes when Harry talks of a boy he thought he loved.

Louis would like to be the boy he _knows_ he loves.

~

“New shirt,” Louis notes on the second Wednesday. ‘New’ is a relative term. It’s new from what he’s seen, but it’s definitely old. It’s worn and has holes in the armpits and has the name of a band Louis has never heard of written on the front.

“Yet same old me.” Harry tsks his tongue and taps his fingers on the wood of the bar, looking around the room as Louis gets his nightly drink.

“Looking for someone?”

Harry turns back to him with the same distracted face as before. “Who’s the dude you came in with?”

“Who? Liam? He’s the bouncer here. We’re roommates.”

“He just looked familiar, is all,” Harry says hesitantly after a beat too long.

Harry’s high today. His eyes are red. Louis doesn’t like Harry as much on his drug days.

“Well... You’ve been coming here for two weeks now. You see him everyday,” Louis reminds him slowly.

“I also see you everyday."

“Yes, you do.”

“I see you everyday and you never mentioned you had a boyfriend,” Harry clarifies. Louis stares at him.

Louis lets out a startled laugh, surprising even himself. “Liam’s - Liam’s not - oh my god. That’s hilarious, I’m sorry. Liam’s so not my boyfriend.” Best friend, he wants to say. Liam’s straighter than a ruler, in all honestly. Harry doesn’t find it equally as amusing.

“He walks you in with a hand on your back and looks like, fond and shit. I don’t know,” Harry says, seemingly frustrated. Louis doesn’t piss him off much; he tries his hardest not too, really, and he knows he’s pissed him off.

“It’s because there’s creepy old guys who try to grope me sometimes, H, not because we’re fucking.”

Harry’s frown deepens, if that’s possible. “Why didn’t you say anything? I would have punched them out.”

Louis laughs again, unable to help himself. Harry scowls. “I live with a bouncer, Harry. I don’t need a bodyguard, too. They’re just horny old dudes; I can fight them off,” Louis says, trying to smooth over the bumps he somehow created.

Harry wrinkles his nose, like Louis has offended him. It’s far too dramatic for this time of day.

“It’s like you’re insulting my strength, here.”

A man is impatiently waiting for a drink and Louis turns his attention to him instead, which only makes Harry more frustrated, it seems. “You’re ignoring me,” he claims, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Because you’re being stupid! _And_ you’re cut off.”

“Fuck off,” Harry spits. Louis makes a gesture towards the door, eyebrows raised.

“I’m kinda at my job, mate. You may kindly fuck off if you’d like, however.”

Harry’s frown deepens more, if that was even possible. “I tell you everything. You tell me nothing,” he defends, slowly lowering his hands back down to rest on the bar counter. Louis just hasn’t seen him like this before.

Liam has noticed the fuss and has started to make his way over carefully, even though Louis is making eyes with him that this really isn’t the best idea.

“Because I’m the fucking bartender, Harry. I’m not your therapist or your friend, I just give you drinks and nod my head. That’s what I fucking do,” Louis frustratedly snaps. Harry physically reels back, as if Louis’ hit him.

Perhaps it’s not the smartest thing Louis has ever said. Liam already has a hand on Harry’s shoulder, a warning sign to calm down. Harry does the opposite of that, and steps out of Liam’s hold rather quickly, eyes still on Louis.

“Right,” he says, and his voice is dangerously low. Louis isn’t afraid of him, but Liam seems to be on his behalf.

“Mate,” Liam cuts in, a second warning. His tone isn’t pretty. “You need to calm down or leave.”

“Right,” Harry says again, clearing his throat. There’s a long pause. “Not like I have any friends here anyways, eh?” Harry’s tone is calmer now, but it still feels off.

Louis just sort of blinks at him, confused at how the fuck this even started. Harry’s an irrational drunk, a crazy, raging alcoholic who Louis should be happy is leaving.

“Right,” Liam repeats, confused, and starts to not-so-politely guide Harry the fuck away from the bar. Louis doesn’t watch him go, doesn’t watch when Liam tells him not to come back here. He’s afraid that Harry might listen.

~

As it turns out, Harry proves not to be a listener. Unlike Louis.

On Friday, Harry’s there as soon as Louis enters the bar for his shift, talking to the bartender who works before him. Adrian, Louis thinks his name is. Harry’s wearing a completely different set of clothes, even sporting a hat and sunglasses. Louis almost chokes on his own spit when he gets behind the bar and Harry leans all up in his space.

“I’m in disguise,” he says, voice one hundred percent serious.

“You high as well?” Louis asks, unimpressed. Harry cracks a smile at that.

“Maybe,” he answers, pausing for a moment, before continuing. “But anyway. Besides the point. I’m here to apologize. For my behavior the other night.”

Louis is still staring at him, unmoving. Harry, to his credit, doesn’t crack.

“I was a fool, you see. I yelled for no reason,” Harry continues, loud and unbashful. It’s Friday, though, so no one blinks twice that it’s louder than necessary. “You must have given me something else to drink. Made me act out, or summat.”

Louis wants to point out that Harry had been yelling and acting weird before Louis even gave him something to drink. He doesn’t say that, though, just hands him a glass of apple cider without another word, and starts to deal with the crowd of people lining up impatiently.

They don’t talk the rest of the night, but he can still hear Harry singing under his breath.

_It's fare thee well my old lover_

_I never expect to see you again_

Life goes on. They don’t talk about Harry’s weird act of jealousy or anger or whatever the hell that was. It seems Harry never runs out of stories, is the thing. Sometimes Louis knows he’s not even telling the truth half the time, perhaps telling friends’ stories or ones he made up on the spot.

Louis listens anyway. And somewhere along the line, Harry starts to listen, too.

~

Perhaps Louis doesn’t have the stories Harry does. He tried to make one up, once, but Harry saw right through it, laughing at him, really, which ended up being more embarrassing than beneficial.

Because Louis doesn’t have stories about wild boys with wild eyes. He only knows about boys who come to the door to pick him up and are too nice to the point it’s almost eye-rollingly bad. He knows of okay sex and average dates, decent kisses and nice nights in, but no one’s ever caught his attention like Harry, made him want someone so bad like Harry.

It’s ridiculous, really, how horribly gone for him he is.

The worst part is probably Harry’s awful flirting. It often makes Louis laugh out loud from how bad his lines are, and he can never really tell where the line of silly and flirty is drawn, or if this is how Harry acts with all of the bartenders.

“How can he act that way with all of the bartenders when he doesn’t _see_ any other bartenders?” Liam points out on their walk to their shift on some random Tuesday. “He only sees you.”

It’s true, of course. Harry’s been coming to the bar every day for weeks now, never missing a day, and Zayn casually mentions he doesn’t see Harry on Thursdays. Which means -

No. There’s no way Harry just comes to the same bar at the same time almost every night just to flirt and tell him stories. He goes for the booze, obviously.

“But he could get booze anywhere,” Liam reasons when Louis tells him exactly that. “You can only find you here.”

It’s a good point, but Louis doesn’t want to agree with him. He feels stupid for even thinking that Harry, who was probably an alcoholic, possibly homeless and perhaps even a pathological liar, would ever be that into him. A bartender who, half the time, doesn’t even give him real alcohol.

“It’s just a crush,” Louis says, when Liam presses the matter. “Crushes fade. He can’t keep coming forever.”

Except, he kind of does.

“Why are you here, Harry?” Louis asks him one night, when most people are gone, and it’s just the two of them, looking at each other in too dim lighting. Louis’ never seen him in the daylight, and he aches to see him without the bar lights dancing in his eyes. He’s probably quite beautiful.

“For six long years I’ve been in trouble,” Harry starts to sing, but Louis pinches his arm before he can keep going.

“Tell me a real story. One that doesn’t involve a song. Or a boy climbing out your window. Tell me why you’re here.”

Harry blinks at him like he wasn’t expecting that. Like he didn’t think Louis would care.

“I have no where else to go,” he says with a helpless shrug, leaning back a little, as if drawing back from the conversation.

For a split second, Louis is horrified he made him _want_ to leave. And now he doesn’t know why that thought made him so fucking scared in the first place.

“So you come here every night. Not to the bar across the street or downtown a little ways, but to me. Why?” Louis should shut up right about now. Harry’s going to actually get up and go to the bar across town and Louis is going to spend the rest of forever wondering why he’s such an idiot.

“Because you don’t treat me like I’m crazy. You listen,” Harry says instead of running, but his eyes look like they’re about too. Louis wants to touch his hand. He wants to scream and tell him not only to stay forever, but to stay the night too. “Other bartenders, see, try to therapy me. You don’t. It’s comforting. Routine. Everyone likes a schedule.”

“So am I a schedule or am I a friend?” Louis asks bravely. “Because friends listen last time I checked. And tell stories back. Or try too, anyways.” Harry’s giving him a look, but Louis can’t backtrack now. He’s too far in.

“I just... don’t get why you stay, is all,” he concludes, busying himself with cleaning off one of the machines even though there’s no use doing so.

“It sounds like you’re trying to get rid of me,” Harry says with a nervous laugh, not missing a beat. He doesn’t answer, though, which leaves Louis thinking that it’s the first one, that Louis is just a scheduled visit. He’s nothing more than a part of Harry’s night. Who knows what he does in the mornings? Maybe flirts with the bartender across town, who stares longingly into his eyes and wonders the same things Louis is wondering right now.

Louis licks his lips. He doesn’t reply. _Stay, stay, stay_ , he thinks. _Stay forever and a day, if you can_

At the silence, Harry must think it’s time for him to go, because he straightens up. Louis visibly winces, but he doesn’t say a word.

Harry tugs out his wallet for the first time since Louis’ known him and pulls out two, crumpled up fifty pound notes. He tosses them in Louis’ direction.

Louis stares.

“I haven’t paid for drinks yet, so. That should cover it. That cider can’t be for more than the booze, hm?” Harry muses, a hint of amusement on his face, but it’s covered by his hard eyes. This is different than their first “fight.” It’s not a fight. It’s a goodbye.

Louis’ scared that if he opens his mouth, his voice will crack or he’ll say something stupid so he keeps his lips pressed together tightly. He looks away when Harry looks at him harder, as if expecting a reaction. An apology. A something.

But he doesn’t get it. So he leaves.

Louis stares at the space he used to occupy for far longer than he cares to admit.

~

Harry doesn’t show the next day. Or the one after that, or the one after that. Louis’ not depressed, just confused on how someone can be so present in your life one day and so absent the next. How he’s never had more questions about Harry before. He never even got his bloody phone number, or his last name. He has no way of finding him, no way of hopping on Facebook to see his whereabouts. As far as he’s concerned, Harry no longer exists.

For some reason, it’s been harder accepting and dealing with this than it has been with most breakups. But the thing is, he knows Harry a thousand times better than Harry knows him. He could be just another face in Harry’s mind, meanwhile Louis is pretty damn positive he’ll never be able to forget him, like a face in a dream you know you’ve seen before but you can’t remember where.

~

 

When Louis graduates, he quits his job at the bar. He’s about to have a proper job; he can’t bartend forever, after all. Liam says he’ll start to feel better once he’s not spending six out of the seven days a week in complete darkness, but if anything, the light makes things worse.

There’s no reminder of Harry at the office cubicle he works at. Except for the fact it’s routine. It’s boring and there are no green eyes or greasy strands of hair or smirks to distract him, so he just types and works and thinks. He wonders what Harry would say if he saw him working behind a desk, so dull and average. If he’d shake his head and laugh, maybe roll his eyes and get annoyed at him for becoming whatever the hell he is now.

It’s not like Louis ever showed him a different side to him, though. He was a bartender. He listened. Not a friend, and not a therapist, but a listener. Someone Harry spewed his lies to. He really shouldn’t feel this hung up over it.

It doesn’t explain why he still is.

~

Louis had sort of sworn off bars after he quit, seeing as he spent more time in one than any average human should ever have to, but Liam convinces him to go out one night.

“You don’t have fun anymore,” Liam insists, who had quit not too long after Louis did.

“That’s because I’m not a child, Liam,” Louis says primly.

It’s crowded and sweaty. He forgot that’s what it’s like when you’re not behind the comfort of a counter. He glances over at the counter to find a boy standing in his old spot, chatting to some birds. They’ll probably flirt their way to free drinks and the boy will agree, because he’s new to the job and has never had this kind of attention before. He’ll figure it out, though. They always do.

He doesn’t like staring for too long so he tries to focus on other things, but Liam’s talking to an old friend, and Louis doesn’t feel like drinking, dancing or pulling yet, so he stays pressed into Liam’s side, not enjoying himself in the slightest. Until.

“Howdy, y’all. I’m Harry Styles, and this is _I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow_.”

Louis blinks. Stares. Watches. Harry is up on stage, looking the opposite of greasy: clean, and not fresh-cut either, but a good mix of something Louis can’t explain. And he’s singing. On stage. Looking at Louis while he fucking does so.

“ _Maybe your friends think I'm just a stranger_ ,” Harry sings, long fingers curled around the stand, green eyes no longer hidden behind dim lighting, but brightened by bar stage lights. Louis was right: he’s quite beautiful. “ _My face you will never see no more_.”

“Hey, that’s your Harry,” Liam says, a little drunk, pointing to the stage. Louis nods, numbly, unable to say much else.

_“But there is one promise, that is given_ ,” Harry continues, the corners of his mouths lifting up into a smile instead of the hard stare he had started with, “ _I’ll meet you on God’s golden shore_.”

When the set is over, Louis finds him. They’ve stood facing each other without a bar counter between them before, but this feels different; new, almost.

“You left me,” Louis accuses, but there’s no bite behind his word. He reaches up to touch him, to curl his fingers against his shirt and to keep him close. _Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave._

“You left the bar,” Harry retorts, hands setting on Louis’ hips. It’s unspoken, whatever this is. “I wanted you to be more than someone who pours my booze. And at that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to keep a steady friendship, let alone a relationship. So I - you know. Hit the road. Found myself and all that. And then I came back and you weren’t here. And I figured, fuck. I can’t leave twice. So I stayed. And you came. And here we are.”

“Here we are,” Louis repeats, breathless.

They spend the rest of the night at the bar, and for once, Louis is the one sharing all the stories. Real ones, this time.

And when their lips finally meet just before the bar closes, the kiss tastes like apple cider. It’s much more endearing than it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is always appreciated and again, hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
